Weekly Sermon (Page 24)

Find weekly sermons from St. Hagop Armenian Church by Father Hovnan Demerjian as video and text. Subscribe to Apple Podcasts | Subscribe on Spotify | Subscribe to Google Podcasts

What’s Your Poison?

The moral of this powerful story is clear and always relevant. There is no venom quite so deadly as mistrust and fear. Fear of the unknown; fear of the other; fear of failure; fear of death—nothing causes spiritual and emotional paralysis more effectively than fear. It corrodes faith, cuts off our pathways for giving and…

The Leap from Twelve to Thirteen

One of the old names for our church is the Armenian Apostolic Church. We very much like to stress that our church has a direct connection with the apostles who had a direct connection with our Lord Jesus Christ. In addition to the Gospels, we emphasize that other aspects of our faith; sacraments, church hierarchy…

Fences & Wells

Fences and wells. That’s the analogy that will govern this sermon and which reveals a fundamental truth about our spiritual maturity and openness to God’s blessing at church, at work and at home. Here is how the fences and wells analogy goes. If you are a farmer with a ranch, you can build fences to…

Fathers’ Day Cards

Fr. Richard Rohr, a Catholic spiritual writer and Franciscan monk, tells a powerful story about father’s day from his first days in prison ministry; work he would continue for 15 years. He recalls the first time that mothers’ day came around, how the inmates were all eager to write a letter back home to mom.…

Law & Order

“Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.” (Mt 12:2) Today’s Gospel reading could make a fine episode of Law & Order, and framing it in this way reveals something profound about our quest for righteousness in this world. The first part of today’s reading is all about the…

Love & Theft

So there is nothing new about identity theft, it is as old as humankind. In fact, Jesus warns us about identity theft-of the deepest kind- it today’s assigned reading from the Gospel of John. There are many thieves and imposters in this life, Jesus warns us, who will not only steal your stuff, but try…

Who Can be Quiet the Longest?

Our modern avoidance of silence surely does all kinds of bad things to intimacy between partners, to people’s mental health and young people’s development, but perhaps its greatest ill effect is on our spiritual development. Because all old Christian traditions, including ours, have always maintained the key role silence plays in our spiritual development. Its…